Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mark Wallace and the business of screwing business

In case you haven't noticed there's been a story floating around accusing Glencore of violating Iran sanctions.

While I've often hinted that in days gone by Glencore played fast and loose with sanctions, at the end of the day Glencore was in the business of business, not the business of politics.

Mark Wallace, on the other hand, is a leading proponent of the politics is business point of view. A lot of the current brou-ha-ha over Glencore stems from this story.

Wallace is a consummate Bush insider who played a key role in ensuring that the hanging chads swung Bush's way in Florida back in the day. He's now the driving force behind United Against Nuclear Iran, an organization that seeks to blackmail western corporations who are inclined to do business with the Islamic Republic.

His UANI group has had considerable success scaring Fortune 500 outfits away from their business dealings with Iran, whether or not their trade is in any way related to sanctioned technology or Iran's nuclear program.

The think tank here at Falling Downs views this as a counterproductive strategy. Ultimately, the people with whom it is most important to talk to are one's enemies. Doing business with "enemies", even enemies arbitrarily designated as such on the basis of revenge fantasies still nurtured by a certain clique in Washington bitter about the demise of the Shah, keeps channels of communication open.

Far better we keep those channels open than we communicate only via our long-range missiles.